Tag Archives: crochet

October, and another outing to Stitches East. Last year I kind of blitzed through it, allowing myself only one afternoon and the following morning at the market. This year, it was a treat to spend a couple of days there. I actually took a couple of classes, strolled the vendor market at a more leisurely pace, and actually didn’t break the budget overdosing on yarn. It was a win all-around, plus some terrific views of the fall foliage on the train to and from Hartford.

This year Stitches was October 11-14, which coincided with Lidlady’s birthday on the 11th and Restaurant Week in Hartford. Shoutout to Trumbull’s Kitchen for a fine dinner! And kudos to the city of Hartford for the free shuttle service that runs from the train station to major hotels, restaurants, and the convention center.

Decided to take it easy this time, and not sign up for workshops or classes at 8am. That left the morning for the Market, schmoosing with the vendors, a bit of lunch, and then an afternoon workshop before getting back to the hotel and collapsing from exhaustion. Shop till you drop indeed!

Saturday afternoon’s workshop was “Beyond Basic Crochet,” with the Crochet Dude himself, Drew Emborsky. To be honest, it didn’t get all that much beyond the basics, but the Dude helped us get our stitches right and get our rows straight. (Yes, yes, I have crocheted a few unintentional parallelograms in my time). He taught us how to change colors correctly and carry yarns almost invisibly. Best of all, he showed us how to weave in those pesky yarn ends (and that, my friends, was worth the whole workshop for me!)

He had enough time to make and model a sampler!

Everybody was dragging by Sunday afternoon, so that might not have been the best time to take a workshop involving knitting wristers with seed beads and fingering weight yarn, but “Off the Cuff” with Susanna Hansson was a lot of fun. She had a great sense of humor and kept up the encouragement (“Don’t worry, it’s a piece of cake!”), even as many of us had brought the wrong kind of yarn, or the wrong size needles, or the wrong size beads for the project. Can’t imagine what I was thinking when I went through the old bead stash and selected beads that were at least 3 times the size I would need! Live and learn. But I did figure out a workaround that got my bead rows to line up more or less correctly, and for that I was dubbed “clever” and “creative.” (See? I told you she was encouraging.) Don’t know that I will be making tons of these beaded cuffs, as knitsters of a certain age with fading eyes and a house full of felines have to exercise some caution. But they are kind of neat, and now that I am home with a full bead stash at my disposal, I do intend to complete at least one pair.

Will be posting more about my yarn purchases anon, as I begin new projects!